The invention is based on an apparatus for separating and erecting folding boxes as defined hereinafter. In an apparatus of this type known for example from European patent application No. 27 968, a pivoting suction device pulls the forwardmost folding box in the magazine crosswise to its extension surface and pivots it, again crosswise to its extension surface, to face a carrier of the conveyor device. This conveyor device guides the folding box, which has been transferred to a straight stretch, into a deflection path where blades that revolve coaxially and are displaceable axially parallel with one another are inserted into the conveyed folding boxes and rotated, causing the folding box that was originally lying flat to be erected in three dimensions, while being held against a side wall by revolving suction heads. The disadvantage of this known apparatus is that when a folding box is lifted from the magazine quickly, successive folding boxes are carried along as well.
An apparatus for separating and erecting folding boxes is also known from German Offenlegungsschrift No. 29 23 909, in which a plurality of suction grippers are disposed on a revolving rotor; they pull the forwardmost folding box from a magazine substantially in the direction of extension of the folding boxes and deliver it to an adjoining curved revolving stretch of a conveyor device of a cartoning machine. In this apparatus, the suction grippers have erecting levers associated with them, which, on the revolving stretch of the suction grippers, pivot a folding box wall not grasped by the suction gripper and thereby set the box upright. This known apparatus is mechanically quite expensive because of the erecting levers associated with the rotating suction grippers. Also, it is not always assured that the the folding boxes will be erected by having pressure exerted on one of their walls, depending on the stresses prevailing in the folding boxes as they lie flat.
Finally, German Offenlegungsschrift No. 22 60 936 also discloses an apparatus for separating and erecting folding boxes, in which the folding boxes, lying flat, are successively pushed in the extension direction, by means of carriers of a conveyor device, out of a magazine that holds folding boxes stacked on one another and are moved past blowers, where the flow of air into them opens the folding boxes. The disadvantage of this apparatus is that folding boxes of thin paperboard cannot be separated very well, and there is also the danger that they will be damaged when pushed at high speed.